Photograph by Jim Newberry
The Wizard!
May 31–June 24
7 p.m. Tue–Thu, 10 a.m. Wed, 2 & 7 p.m. Fri & Sat, 1 & 5:30 p.m. Sun.
$10–$44
3509 Samuel Shepard,
314-289-4040,
Laura Lippert hangs in the air with the greatest of ease…on a golden aluminum chair. She starts off in a casual sitting position, then gracefully drapes herself beneath the chair, hanging from its rungs as a pulley raises and lowers it. The pulleys are essential to the performance, because she must perform certain tricks from specific heights to guarantee safety. Lippert began training as an aerialist at Sacha’s St. Louis School of Circus Arts in 2003, right after she graduated from Central Visual and Performing Arts High School. In 2007, after she moved to Chicago, Lippert began performing full-time. She has trained on the trapeze, aerial silks, duo and solo hoops, and even hair-hanging, but the chair is her trademark act. She’s been working on it for more than a year, continually adding and deleting tricks to see what works best. “There are some people who say it takes about four years to make a perfect act,” she says. As is the case with many works of art, some of the magic of circus performance originates in pain—she bruises herself every time she works on a new trick. But her sacrifice is worth it, she says, because she creates a spectacle so mesmerizing, it leaves the audience in awe.
WEB EXCLUSIVE: EXTENDED Q&A WITH LAURA LIPPERT
How did you break into the world of aerial performance? Did your background in gymnastics and dance lead you to it?
I started right after graduating high school. I studied for two summers at Sasha’s School of Circus Arts. Then I moved up to Chicago, and then I moved to France for a little bit to be a nanny, so I didn’t do any serious circus performing until I came back from that in 2007. And I’ve been working with a company in Chicago called Aloft since then.
When you were training to become an aerialist, which apparatuses did you start out on? How long have you been performing with the aerial chair?
I just kind of started out on the basics. I started out on flying trapeze and then when I started getting serious, I did silks and trapeze. Then I had a duo hoop act for a few years—I had a partner, but now we’ve decided to part ways because we have different interests in what we want to do. I don’t really do solo hoop, and I don’t really do silks—I do those if it’s like a corporate event. I can do those, but I don’t sell myself as doing those.
Is the aerial chair a commonly performed act—at least as common as the aerial silks, which look familiar to most circus-goers?
I know people have done similar things, but my chair—my personal chair—is something that me and the person who built the chair invented.
Is your chair made specifically for you? Is it handmade?
Yes. It’s metal—you don’t work with wood. It’s aluminum and has some steel in it for extra support.
At one point in your chair act, you swing your body in a circle hanging by only your left leg. How do you train you body to hang and bend the way it does in when you perform?
It takes a long time. I’ve been working on this act for over a year, and I’m still working on it. Acts take a very long time. Some people say that it takes like four years to have a perfect act, but I feel like acts are ever-changing because you’re always getting better or you want to try something new.
Do you perform the exact same moves in the same order during each performance or do you mix it up a bit each time?
It depends on the person—I think it goes both ways. Sometimes you’ll change the entire sequencing because you feel after doing it several time it works better another way, or you learn a new trick and you replace it with another trick or you throw in another one somewhere.
Have you done that with this act at all?
Yes, I’m continually doing it with this act. I’ve added things since the video posted on my website. [LINK: http://www.laural.net/la ura/Laura_Lippert.html] I’ve added some tricks that are difficult and it takes a lot of time, and I’m not comfortable performing them yet, so they will eventually be part of my act when I’m more comfortable doing them and they’re consistent enough in practice.
Does the act get longer or do you try to keep it in the 5-minute range?
Yeah, I keep it in the 5 to 6 minute range, so sometimes you have to take things out, or I try to move quicker in what I’m doing, I change that as well. But it can’t change too much because you take cues from the music. In circus, you’re always learning. It’s a constant—there’s always something new to learn, even in a different field or the same field. People do this their entire lives—that’s something I love about it.
Your website mentions that you can perform a modified version of your act from a dead hang. What exactly is a dead hang and why does the act need to be modified for it?
Dead hang means there’s no pulling. In my act, I have ups and downs, so there’s usually a winch or a pulley system. A pulley system is man-handled and a winch is a machine. In a dead hang the chair would just hang from the beam so that I would have no pulls, so I wouldn’t be able to do some of my tricks at too low a height—the higher the better, so I don’t worry about hitting my head or my feet.
Tell me about the hair hanging.
Yeah, that’s something I learned how to do a few years ago, but I’ve been working on my chair act, so I put that aside a little bit—it’s still a work in progress. It’s something you have to practice as well—building calluses on your head. It hurts, but everything in the circus hurts—it’s just getting pain tolerance.
So when you’re doing the twists and turns on the chair, you’re essentially working from pain?
Things eventually get better. There are certain tricks that will always inflict pain, but it’s just tolerating it, and they get less painful. When I was first working on my chair, I was covered in bruises from head to toe, but now, since I’m doing the same tricks all the time, I don’t get bruises from the chair unless I’m working on something new and it’s hitting my body in a place it’s not used to. It’s teaching your body that it’s okay.
What would recommend for someone who wants to break in to aerial performance?
Well, there are a lot of schools—professional schools and just schools—that teach for extracurricular fun all over the country and world and even in St. Louis, there are a couple schools. It’s just learning the basics—it’s like anything else: you need to learn to do it safely and correctly, step by step. It takes a lot of time. A lot of people don’t realize how long it really takes. I practice six days a week—you have to give yourself a day off, though sometimes I don’t get a day off, with performances.
How did you end up in Chicago with Aloft?
I moved to Chicago to go to undergrad, and then I decided that’s not what I wanted to do, and when I came back from France, a friend of a friend of a friend told me about Aloft, and that’s pretty much it.
So how did you end up coming back to St. Louis for this performance?
Well, they were having auditions a few months ago, and I’ve always wanted be a part of Circus Flora, especially being from St. Louis—it’s kind of a dream. So I went to the auditions and I was lucky enough to have been picked, so I’m very happy about that. It’s my first big top circus, so it’s very exciting that it’s with Circus Flora.
Do you think you’ll ever move back to St. Louis or do you think you’ll stay in Chicago?
Actually, neither. Come July, I don’t know where my life is going to be.
Have you been looking at other places to take your act?
Yes, I am currently applying to a bunch of different circuses and varieties and festivals.
Are a lot of them traveling or do some of them stay in one place, like Circus Flora or Aloft?
Both. I’m applying to anything and everything. That’s what you have to do as a circus performer—you just have to throw yourself out there and see what comes your way because no one knows who you are if you don’t throw yourself out there.
